Gracenote to Help Launch Music Services

Digital music company Gracenote Inc. is rolling out a “white-label” custom-radio platform.

Gracenote Inc.

Want to launch your own Internet radio service?

It’s becoming easier than ever. Digital music company Gracenote Inc. is rolling out a “white-label” custom-radio platform that will allow listeners to create specialized stations based on genre, mood, era, tempo, and geographical origin and artist type – and tailor the stations to their liking using “like and “dislike” controls, much like the service Pandora Media Inc. offers. The platform, called Gracenote Rhythm, will be available to developers in February.

Gracenote, which already provides technology used in parts of Apple Inc.’s iTunes Radio, is just one of a slew of companies building white-label music-streaming services for clients that range from car makers to retailers.

Scores of new streaming services are expected to launch this year, some competing with giants like Spotify AB and Pandora, but many targeting niche markets with limited catalogs and lower price tags.

Gracenote President Stephen White said the new platform will serve up international genres like reggae and soca, as well as classical music –areas where most existing internet radio services come up short, he said.

A team of 100 music experts are employed around the world to help classify the 180 million songs in Gracenote’s database according to genre and origin, while navigating cultural nuances and providing the language expertise to make sure that listeners in all countries can find what they’re looking for. Computers, meantime, classify aspects of songs like tempo. Using a combination of human and machine analysis will help the platform to scale quickly in any market, according to the company. Pandora, by contrast, which offers roughly 1 million songs, relies more heavily on its human experts, who chart hundreds of different aspects of each song that goes into Pandora’s system.

But clients using Gracenote’s platform still have to do their own music licensing deals – either by paying for a blanket license from the government or negotiating directly with rights holders for the permission to offer songs on demand.

Gracenote, formerly known as CDDB – short for compact disc database – was originally a user-built site, created by fans who voluntarily uploaded information about music CDs they loaded into computers. Sony Corp. acquired Gracenote for $260 million in 2008 but announced last month announced it was selling Gracenote to Tribune Co. for $170 million amid a cost-cutting effort.